Building work under way at North Korea’s ‘shut’ nuclear test site

NORTH Korea has started rebuilding its main nuclear testing site, in another sign that Pyongyang is ramping up its atomic weapons programme.

Satellite images have captured fresh activity at the Punggye-ri nuclear proving grounds, suggesting a “decision” has been made about the facility nearly four years after it was shut down, analysts said. Changes include a newly constructed building, repair work to older structures and newly cut timber at the site, which is in the remote and mountainous north-east of the country and is closely monitored internationally.

The pictures, which were taken on Friday by Maxar, a satellite operator, show “very early signs of activity at the new site”, Jeffrey Lewis, a director at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies in California, said yesterday. “North Korea uses a substantial amount of wood at the site, both for buildings and shoring up tunnels. These changes occurred in only the past few days.” The work indicates that North Korea “has made some decision about the status of the test site”, analysts from the centre said in a report.

Six tests are known to have been carried out at the Punggye-ri site between 2006 and 2017, making it the only active nuclear testing site in the world.

It was shut down in May 2018 amid talks with the US and South Korea aimed at easing tensions in the region.

At the time, the North Korean government invited the international media to watch as mountain tunnels and several buildings were blown up at the site.

However, no one was permitted to examine the facility itself, raising concerns that only the entrances to the tunnels had been damaged, which would be easily reversible. North Korea’s relations with Washington and Seoul have deteriorated dramatically since 2018. In January, Kim Jong-un’s regime announced that it would reconsider “confidence-building measures” it had taken to date and “examine the issue of restarting all temporarily suspended activities”.

Pyongyang has launched an unprecedented flurry of 11 missile tests since the beginning of this year. Its most recent was of a ballistic missile last week, which was condemned by the US as “destabilising”.

Yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also pointed to renewed activity at the five-megawatt nuclear reactor at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear complex, including the construction of an annex to a centrifuge enrichment plant at the site.

Rafael Grossi, IAEA director general, called the development “deeply regrettable”.